March 28, 2014

Release Notes - Autodesk Alias 2015 Readme
Autodesk, Inc.

This readme contains the latest information regarding the use of this software release. For reference, you should save this readme to your hard drive or print a copy.

• System Requirements
• Installation Requirements
• Known Issues & Notifications
• Defects Addressed
• Legal Notice

Autodesk® Alias® Design 2015, Autodesk® Alias® Surface 2015, Autodesk® Alias® Automotive 2015, and Autodesk® Alias® AutoStudio 2015 software is supported on the following 64-bit operating systems and at a minimum, requires a system with the following 64-bit hardware:

Software

Operating System

• Microsoft® Windows® 7 (SP1), Windows® 8 and Windows® 8.1 Professional operating system
• Apple® Mac OS® X 10.8.5 and 10.9.x operating system

Browser

Autodesk recommends the latest version of the following web browsers for access to online supplemental content:

• Apple® Safari® web browser
• Google Chrome™ web browser
• Microsoft® Internet Explorer® web browser
• Mozilla® Firefox® web browser

Hardware

CPU

2 GHz 64-bit Intel® or AMD® multi-core processor

Graphics Hardware

Supported NVIDIA® or ATI graphics card with a minimum of 256 MB dedicated texture memory.

RAM

4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)

Disk Space

Free hard disk space required for installation:

• Autodesk® Alias® AutoStudio: 10 GB
• Autodesk® Alias® Automotive: 8 GB
• Autodesk® Alias® Surface: 5 GB
• Autodesk® Alias® Design: 5 GB

Pointing Device

• Three-button mouse
• Wacom® graphics tablet for sketching

Autodesk is not responsible for errors or failures of Autodesk software arising from the installation of updates, extensions or new releases issued by third party hardware or software vendors for the certified software or hardware identified in this document (or for any other third party software or hardware that you may use in connection with Autodesk products).

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• Administrator privileges on your local machine to install Autodesk Alias 2015.
• Sufficient disk space, refer to requirements above.
• Serial Number and Product Key, provided by Autodesk at point of purchase.
• The following are delivered and installed as part of the main installation process:
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package
• DirectX 9.0 Redistributable
• Alias (Windows 64bit/MacOSX)
  Autodesk^® Maya^® (Windows 64bit/MacOSX)
  Autodesk^® Sketchbook^® Designer (Windows 64bit)
  Autodesk^® Sketchbook^® Professional (MacOSX)

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System Requirements

• Alias 2015 products are no longer supported on MacOS 10.7.x.

General

• When the User Defined Texture is selected in the Diagnostic Shading window, the icon for the tool will not change when you change the Map Type.
• Alias will not interactively load an empty Shelf Set. If the result of the load is an empty shelf, Alias will reload the previous set.
• The LiveUpdate notification functionality (satellite icon on far right of menu bar) has been replaced by Autodesk Application Manager. For more information, see About Autodesk 360 and Application Manager.

Modeling

• When building a profile surface using the Rotate To Target orientation, the profile rotates until a part of the profile curve is tangent to the target surface. If the profile is a degree 1 curve then the tangent condition is not likely to be achieved. For this case you need to select the Use Profile Point option to specify where you want the contact to be made.
• The blending function for variable geometry for the tools Surface Fillet, Fillet Flange, Tube Flange, Tubular Offset, Mesh Edge Reconstruct, and Multi-Surface Draft used a function that produced flat spots at each specified value. This caused inflections in the surface that were undesirable. The blending function has been changed to the one used by Panel Gap and Round to make all these tools consistent. This new blending function will produce flat spots only at local minimums or maximums and smooth transitions at intermediate spots.
• The Align tool behavior changed as follows: Modifying the degree of the slave surface causes the tangent arm lengths to reset based on the last aligned surface - any changes you made to the arm lengths are lost. Before changing the degree, use the Accept button to preserve the arm lengths.
• Surface Fillet may fail when the two surfaces to be filleted meet at an overlap/tangency. The workaround is to un-extend the upper edges of the two input surfaces that meet at a needle point, then try creating the fillet again.
• When using Center Radius in the Fillet Flange and Tube Flange tools, the fillet shape manipulator displays the wrong size and shape. The fillet is built correctly using the values in the control window. Although you can place multiple manipulators, for Center Radius only one value works correctly.

Data Transfer

• JT export now treats construction layers as visible regardless of the visibility of the layer itself. All data in the construction layer will be exported to the JT file.
• Save Active and Copy/Paste now support the saving/loading of categories. Only categories that contain active layer(s) are stored/retrieved.

Visualization

• For the new File > Send To VRED functionality to work properly, the Enable Web Server option must be enabled in VRED (Edit > Preferences, WebInterface tab).

Vault

• Alias may crash on a client machine when one user logs out from an account followed by another user logging in using a different account. This should not be a common occurrence and may be caused by a time lag in the logout and login authorization process occurring on the Vault server/Alias Vault Client.

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The following is a list of key defects the Alias team has addressed for the 2015 release. This list does NOT represent all the defects addressed during the 2015 development cycle.

• 397769 - An issue where various paint pencils/brushes would creating a tiling effect has been resolved.
• 395613 - When an invisible layer is made the active construction layer, objects on that layer become visible (as always) but that layer now still retains its invisible state/flag. The invisible icon will appear in the object lister and on the layer bar. This is because technically the layer is still marked as invisible and we want you to readily identify that even though it is the construction layer, when saved/exported, it will be saved as invisible.
• 396060 - The Mesh Hole fill function does not always select the area to fill if the selection is made using the magnify window. Making the selection in the main window should work as expected.
• 396189 - All matching objects may not be selected when trying to do a search and pick for multiple entities in the Object Lister and/or the Layer Category window. Single search and pick queries should work as expected.
• 395030 - There are known issues between Wacom devices and the Alias application which can cause the Alias system to enter bad/unresponsive states. Such states are characterized by an inability to enter pen/mouse commands as though the application no longer has focus. As a workaround, minimizing the application and then Alt-tabbing back into it will often resolve the issue.
• 398355 - When building a profile surface with the Use Profile Point option and the point directly on the rail, the profile surface will fail. Because there is no difference between the point and pivot on the rail there is no way the profile can be scaled or rotated to meet the target. The Profile tool will now detect this situation and move the point to the opposite end of the the profile automatically so that there is possibility of a solution.
• 396252 - When using chain select in the Extend tool, the original surface would sometimes be duplicated. This has been fixed.

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Autodesk, Alias, VRED, Maya, and Sketchbook are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other Countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2014 Autodesk, Inc. A